Becoming author at young age

Wednesday

Jan 2, 2013 at 12:01 AMJan 4, 2013 at 1:17 PM

By GEORGE AUSTIN

By GEORGE AUSTIN

Editor

SOMERSET — Brynna Belche had a goal of publishing her writing before she turned 13 years old and a couple of weeks before she became a teenager, she accomplished what she had set out to do with her book entitled "The Boys of Woods Hollow."

Brynna gave the first copy of her book to her former Somerset Middle School language arts teacher, Donna Daniel, who inspired her to get published.

Brynna's idea of a series of books started back in fifth grade when she wrote four pages of a modern myth. She said she stopped working on the myth for no reason and then spent the whole summer watching the television show "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

On April 3 of last year, she started bringing her iPad into class at the middle school and was writing from the top of her head. Her mother, Lori Belche, said some authors might suggest not to go about writing a book that way because there would be so much editing to do later, but said this method works for her daughter. Teachers had been giving Brynna a graphic organizer that showed how to set up writing a story and the student would just stare at it blankly. Brynna would get all her worksheets in her English classes done early and then would spend the rest of the time in the class using her iPad to work on her book.

Brynna's parents had the book self published through Lulu.com that uses an on demand system. Jon Belche, Brynna's father, said if the book does well, a publishing company could pick it up.

"Her book is available on Amazon.com right now," Jon said.

In "The Boys of Woods Hollow," Andrew Morris, who is 12 years old, moves from Los Angeles to a suburb in Rhode Island in July of 1995. When he steps out of the car, he is told to do something kid like and so he finds a basketball that was left by the previous owner of the house. He goes to a cul de sac where the area looks like Miller's Lane in Somerset. He finds a field with a hollow of trees and decides to explore it. The story really gets going when he does that. He stumbles upon a group of young adolescent gentlemen who are proudly named the Boys of Woods Hollow. His introverted life suddenly gets turned upside down, but he finds the balance he needs with a group of friends and a cool secret hangout. These would be the times he reminisces about for the rest of his life.

"It's just this entire life in my head that I wished happened, but never did," Brynna said.

Brynna draws from some popular culture in the book as the main character's middle name is Marty McFly, the character from the "Back to the Future" movie series, and his friend's middle name is Ferris Bueller after that famous movie character.

The 103-page book was written between April 3 and the beginning of June last year and then published in November. Brynna reedited her book five times.

Brynna has a list of seven more books and their titles planned for the series. She is also planning to do an art book for the characters in the series.

Brynna's next goal is to publish a book for Kindle. She said her main inspiration for continuing the book series has to do with author John Green who published the young adult novel "Looking for Alaska" in 2005.

Lori said that in kindergarten, Brynna came home with a story that she wrote about a prince and a princess that was so good, it shocked her parents. The phrases in her book were so well written that the parents thought their daughter might have copied them from somewhere and so they did a Google search, but nothing popped up, which Jon says shows his daughter has a style all of her own.

"Yeah, we think we have a smart daughter, but not one we thought could write this well," Jon said.

Brynna, who is in the seventh grade, is being virtual schooled at her family's home in Somerset which gives her more time to write. An online analyst said that Brynna writes like Stephen King. Another person said she writes like the author of the "Twilight" series. Brynna said she reads Fan Fiction a lot and looks at a web comic called "Homestuck."